


anche se poi ti fa piangere

by concalma



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: A.S. Roma, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 13:55:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17920094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concalma/pseuds/concalma
Summary: “Dance with me,” Luca says, not a question, glitter in his eyes and a flush to his cheeks, his body already moving, one hand held out, open and waiting—so Nicolò does.





	anche se poi ti fa piangere

**Author's Note:**

> title is from _questa nostra stupida canzone d'amore_ by thegiornalisti

On Luca’s left knee, an ugly scar rises, a strip of white on tanned skin.

It shows through the rip of his jeans as he sits, leg extended out from under the table where Nicolò takes up most of the space. It looks like a nightmare Nicolò might’ve had once, a constant, tender reminder of the tear of a muscle and the shatter of a kneecap. It’s a fear that Luca lives every time he sets foot on the pitch, every time he falls over, hand coming down automatically to his knee, squeezing tight.

Sometimes the horror is so palpable that Nicolò can taste it in the back of his mouth, sometimes he’s glad it isn’t him.

They’re at a café, sitting inside to escape the worst of the dry heat that has consumed the whole of Rome. Through the window, Nicolò can still hear the buzz of people in the piazza and engines of old cars and vespas choking into life, whirring and wailing and somehow managing to overcome their end once more. Inside is much quieter, Luca’s voice the peak of the noise, his accent thicker in the small side streets of his hometown than he ever allowed on international duty.

“You’ll love it here,” he says, like he can be trusted, like it’s not the only thing he’s ever known.

They all told Nicolò he would love Milan, too.

Nicolò picks up his glass of juice, diluted, satisfying clink of ice long lost, and takes a drink. Across the table, Luca does the same, not waiting for an answer but watching him, a shiny trace of coffee left on his lips until he licks it away.

Nicolò shifts in his seat, looks away.

 

 

“Do you like it?”

The tattoo on Luca’s arm is barely a day old, the skin around the ink red and tender and raised. Nicolò can’t help it, reaches up and brushes his fingertips over the scabbing beginning to form, feeling the familiar burn of skin. Standing before him in the locker room, Luca’s breath hitches just a little, like he’s trying to hide it, and Nicolò looks up at him, smiling.

“Very cool,” he says.

 

 

It takes ten, fifteen, maybe twenty seconds for Luca to find him after the final whistle, coming towards him, smiling with all his teeth. Seven minutes, that’s all he gets, but Nicolò is not naïve, knows exactly what it means to him as he pushes himself up onto his toes to yank him into a hug, can feel the excitement in the warmth of his face and the crazy drum of his heart against his chest.

“We fucking did it,” Luca tells him, keeping a hand tightly curled around the back of his neck, shaking him just a little. “We fucking did it.”

They haven’t done anything. Not really. Not in the grand scheme of things. But they have done _this_ , and it is precious, and it is joyous, and some kid from Rome has played his first game for Roma, and there’s a magic to that even Nicolò can’t touch. It’s a dream come true, Nicolò imagines Luca will tell everyone afterwards, no hint of a lie in his voice as he beams, stepping into Rome’s cradle of devotion for their own, their paths spun together for as long as he is useful to them.

“Yes we fucking did,” Nicolò says back, voice cracked from exertion, but sincere all the same.

 

 

That night, they go to a club.

“Dance with me,” Luca says, not a question, glitter in his eyes and a flush to his cheeks, his body already moving, one hand held out, open and waiting—so Nicolò does.

It isn’t quite like he expects it to be, a girl between them, dancing with her arms circled around his shoulders, fingers twisting in the damp hair at the base of his neck. Luca’s hands are on her hips, but his eyes are on Nicolò, dark blue and dozy, peering up at him like he’ll get lost in the mad press of people if he looks away. Nicolò doesn’t even notice at first, not until she leans forward to try and kiss him and he turns his head away, eyes meeting Luca’s over her shoulder, feeling the anchor of his gaze cut into the burning skin of his face.

“Why didn’t you kiss her?” Luca asks him later, pressing his knuckles to the top of Nicolò’s arm but exerting no force. It’s an almost disconcerting change from his usual rough and tumble, fingers curling into Nicolò’s jersey and dragging him back, dragging him down, be they teammates or not. Nicolò’s not sure what he likes best. “You should’ve kissed her.”

“I should’ve,” he agrees, but he can’t let himself believe it.

 

 

Nicolò lies in bed, laptop resting on his chest, the search results for _luca pellegrini_ staring back at him. This is stupid, he thinks to himself, fingers twitching over the touchpad until he somehow gathers the nerve to click on the first link.

It’s one of those terrible skills compilations, complete with trashy techno music over clips of old primavera games and friendlies. Luca is strong, quick and constantly in motion, getting away with fouls that Nicolò thinks he’s been on the end of his entire life—but that’s not it. That’s not why, he thinks, because Nicolò has admired plenty of his teammates on the pitch without—without whatever this is, spreading like wildfire through his chest.

He slams his laptop shut, tries not to think about it.

Fails.

 

 

Sometimes, Nicolò wants.

There are the football things, of course, like goals and assists and playing more than just the last twenty minutes of a game they’re not going to win. He wants to win. He wants the syrupy sweet taste of victory until it makes him sick. He wants glory.

But he also wants Roma. He wants Rome. He wants to make them fall in love with him without even realising what it is that he’s done. He wants to make a home here, remembering every new front room of every new city of ever new football club his father would play for. He doesn’t want that for himself. He wants continuity and stability and forever if it works out that way. If he doesn’t get it here, he wants it somewhere else. He wants to stay.

Most of all, Nicolò wants Luca. He wants him to speak up, to shut up, to stop using his elbows so much when he’s marking him in training. He wants to kiss his neck.

He wants to tell him—but he can’t. Can’t even bring it upon himself to try, so he sits across from him on the train to Empoli and lays a hand down on the table, touching the edge of his pinkie with his own, so excruciatingly delicate that he doesn’t notice. Only he does, he must do, because he hooks their pinkies together for a moment, just a moment, and then lets go once more.

Neither of them says a word.

 

 

Two weeks later, Luca sprains his ankle during training.

Nicolò goes on international duty alone.

 

 

Luca’s still on crutches when he gets back. He spots him across the Trigoria car park, both their mothers dropping them off between their teammates’ flashy sports cars. Nicolò feels exceptionally young, exceptionally stupid, but Luca hobbles straight towards him anyway.

“You’re a pro on those,” Nicolò tells him, void of anything better to say.  

Luca stops, shrugs, says, “Plenty of practice.”

On the walk to the entrance, Nicolò shortens his stride to stay in step with Luca, a hand hovering close to the small of his back until he realises what it is that he’s doing. To save face, he shoves his hands into his pockets and guiltily persists with it even as Luca struggles to pull the door open, a dirty line of curses leaving his mouth as he bumps his knee up against the side of it.

“Sorry,” Nicolò mutters, stepping in after him.

“For what?” Luca asks.

It’s a very good question, one Nicolò doesn’t think he has an answer to.

 

 

If things take a turn, it’s against Inter.

Nicolò isn’t bitter about it, doesn’t think he has anything to prove, not in the way he does against Fiorentina, but—but how expendable am I now, he thinks, touching the ball past Valero and playing it off D’Ambrosio for a throw-in. He goes to get it himself, brushing past Spalletti as he goes, the Stadio Olimpico crowd raising their voices in approval.

He goes on a run, starting and finishing games, coming off exhausted in a way he’s never felt before, a true boy among men. By the time Sassuolo come to Rome, though, Nicolò has found his feet, found his edge, and there’s something natural about the way he finishes off his first goal for the club. Something slick and innate, sending the defenders to the ground as he fakes them out and lifts the ball over the outstretched fingers of the goalkeeper.

It’s filthy, they tell him later. Absolutely filthy.

“What a player,” Luca crows in his ear as they walk back to the dressing room at the end of the game, swotting him with his unworn jersey on the side of his head. “What a fucking player.”

It’s stupid, a joke, but just for a moment, all the fatigue in Nicolò’s legs is gone, replaced by a euphoria to run another hundred miles or more. He can’t and he won’t, so instead he wraps an arm around Luca’s neck as they walk, hauling him into a headlock, his face pressed tight to the crook of his elbow but his fingers soft over the subtle rise of his cheekbone.

Luca doesn’t even try to fight back, and that’s the most unnerving thing of all.

 

 

The second time they go dancing, there’s no girl.

It feels like a sordid little prize in a way, like a match ball or bottle of champagne but designed specifically for him in the way Luca moves his hips and his hair sticks to his forehead after a while. Beneath the strobe lighting, Nicolò finds a tentative hold on Luca’s sides, keeping him close when it feels like he’s spinning off, fingertips slipping past the soft cotton of his t-shirt to find bare skin every now and then. Not that Luca seems to mind, pressing solid and full up against Nicolò, occasionally dropping his head down on his shoulder to bite his lip and let the younger boy take the full weight of him, helpless.

And then he stops, says, “Nico, I’ve got to—I need to go,” mouthing the words against Nicolò’s ear, stumbling away into the crowd of sweat-damp, red-faced strangers.

Nicolò does not follow.

 

 

Later, Nicolò sobers up on the living-room sofa, body curled tight with his head resting in his mother’s lap.

“Do you know what the worst part is?” he says, out of the blue. “He’s not even that cute.”

For a fraction of a second, her fingers pause in his hair, then she says, “They never usually are.”

 

 

Nicolò spends most of the winter break in La Spezia, mooching around his father’s café and visiting old friends.

When he returns to Rome, it is colder, and Luca is there, standing in the middle of his kitchen, an arm wrapped around himself to keep the chill out. He is quiet as Nicolò’s mother makes herself scarce, a tight fist clutched to his chest, the sharp line of his knuckles whiter than Nicolò has ever seen them. For a moment, leaning back against the counter, he thinks Luca might want to punch him, demand a reason for all that he’s done, but there’s no fury in his eyes.

There is sadness, though, and Nicolò is just enough in love with him to not know if he would prefer it the other way around.

“I called you,” Luca tells him, like he doesn’t know. “I guess you must’ve been busy.”

Nicolò nods through the lie, watching Luca twist his fingers together, looking for a hand to hold but settling for himself. He looks younger, smaller, his bubble of bravado long since burst, scattering shards of himself over the length and breadth of the country until he’s compresed himself into something somewhat miniscule, somewhat soft. He’s a gentle soul, after all, no matter how desperately he tries to repress it.

The truth always shines through in the end.

“Either that or you’re just an asshole,” he adds, then, just the smallest of smiles playing on his lips.

Nicolò has to laugh.

“It’s possible,” he says, nodding his head before dropping and lifting his eyes, finding Luca looks slightly less like he’s about to flee. It’s strange, because he wants to say the right thing, to fix everything and pack it away, but he doesn’t know what that is because, unfortunately, he’s nineteen. “What did you want to tell me?”

This isn’t the question Luca wants, but it’s one that he accepts, lips beginning to stutter with an answer before he’s even sorted it out in his head.

“I know,” he says, and Nicolò’s heart springs and plummets in his chest, feeling himself shrink down to match him, the counter pressing tight to his back. “I know,” he repeats, taking a step forward, the space shrinking comically between them. Luca tilts his chin up. “I know and I didn’t do anything about it. I got scared.”

He reaches out, touches the string of Nicolò’s hoodie.

“You ran away,” Nicolò says.

A gentle touch turns to a fist, knuckles digging into the top of Nicolò’s chest, threatening to pierce right through.

“You didn’t hold my hand,” Luca bites back, quiet. “You fucking coward.”

And that—it simply won’t do, so Nicolò grabs his hand, pulling him forwards by it until he can feel the echo of his heart rattling around his chest against his own, and kisses him. Kisses the _fuck_ out of him, curses bleeding down the cracks of his dry lips until only the wet sound of too much tongue for a first kiss fills the kitchen.

 

 

When Nicolò closes his bedroom door behind them, Luca shoves him up against it.

Suddenly all the quick glances, the fingers twisted into training bibs for just a fraction too long, the accidental ecstasy of feeling when the bone in Luca’s ankle grazes his own on trips across the country, all of it makes sense. All of it has had a purpose, a cry out for want, settling hot and low in his stomach. He can feel it in the hungry, angry, hard way Luca moves against him, desperate, no different to the way he is on the pitch, jostling Nicolò for possession of the ball as though it could kill him if he didn’t.

Nicolò finds that he likes the fact there’s no difference.

After they’re done, while Luca’s still hovering on top of him with sticky skin and short breath, he touches of the side of Nicolò’s face. It’s a clumsy, affectionate touch, fingers dragging down his cheek. His lips are pouted and his eyes liquid, the colour of drowning or an oncoming storm, but Nicolò likes them. He likes most things about him, sharp elbows to the abdomen and all.

“We should do that again,” Luca says, to which Nicolò laughs, tangling his hands in his hair and dragging him back down with a clatter of teeth.

 

 

The writing is on the wall against Entella.

Luca presses the outside of his thigh to Nicolò’s as they sit together on the bench, suddenly brave, suddenly smiling, looking not at him but at the pitch, at his Roma. It’s almost sad, painfully so, how much he wants it, but how far out of reach it all seems to be. Sometimes, Nicolò wishes he could drag it back to him, share in the love and adoration he’s beginning to get from the fans, but he knows he can’t. Knows that’s not his battle to fight.

Doesn’t think Luca would want him to even if he could.

 

 

“Do you think we would’ve met?” Luca asks, suddenly. “Like, if we weren’t footballers.”

Nicolò pauses in his pursuit of carving up a baguette. He’s making lunch for them both, though he’s not quite sure they’ll make it to the dining table if Luca doesn’t stop picking at the cheese and soppressata while he waits. Mostly Luca has been talking all sorts of nonsense, but this gets his attention, different universes unfurling in his mind.

“I don’t know,” he says.

Luca jumps, sits on the counter just along from him, says, “I think we would’ve, at university or something. We’d have smoked together and cut class and drank and partied and fucked each other in people’s bedrooms that we didn’t know.” Luca pauses, picking up another slice of meat to crush it into Nicolò’s mouth. “I think we would’ve held hands a lot.”

It makes Nicolò sad for a moment, but Luca would like him back in every universe, and it makes him smile, stupid.

 

 

After Torino, everyone wants a piece of him.

It’s probably not the best idea to go out, but Luca promises his friends that they will, and it’s not like Nicolò has anything better to do, or that he’s tripping over any friends of his own in this city. It’s not a bad place they end up at, walls covered in mirrors and smoke diffusing the strobe lights, the booth seats comfortable when he gets a chance to sit between taking selfies with anyone that asks, be they Roma fans or not.

He doesn’t know if it’s real, or if they’re just so desperate for something to cling on to that he’ll do for now, but he doesn’t really care either way. They love him. They _adore_ him like their pride and joy, as if he could be one of their own, born and raised, cradle to curva.

It’s the first time he’s felt it, and he’ll be damned if he lets it go.  

As it happens, Luca wants just as much of him as everyone else, and Nicolò jokingly wonders if his next tattoo should just be _che giocatore_ for all the times Luca mouths it into the side of his neck, a permanent wet heat. He thinks this as Luca drops cautiously to his knees, onto the bathroom floor, fingers hooking into the waistband of his jeans and jerking him near with one sharp tug. He just stays there for a moment, looking up at him with his cheek pressed to the front of his jeans, his face undecipherable.

Head filled with the pound of bass, Nicolò doesn’t know what to do.

Luca does though, apparently, easing his hand up and tucking his fingers into the zip of his jeans, popping the button and pulling them down, right to the bottom of his thighs. Nicolò is about to protest because that’s it, that’s enough, they’re not doing this here, but then Luca presses his lips to the crease of his thigh and shifts lower, kissing down his tattoo there, tongue dragging along somewhere near _sei l'essenza._

“What the fuck,” Nicolò breathes, back of his head hitting the door of the bathroom stall as he drags his fingers through Luca’s hair, feeling him get to his feet once more. “What the hell are you doing?”

Luca shrugs, reaching down to pull his jeans back up, graciously zipping and buttoning them too. Nicolò’s hand still rests in his hair.

“I always wanted to do that,” Luca tells him, smiling.

Nicolò swots at his head, says, “You’re a fucking asshole, do you know that?”

“I know,” Luca says in return, pleased with himself.

 

 

Di Francesco gives them two days off. Nicolò forgets, jerking himself awake into an increasingly familiar room, Luca plastered to his back. He shushes him, drags him closer and gleefully, sleepily tells him that he kicks decisively less in his sleep after he’s been fucked.

 

 

It’s not the first time Fiorentina breaks his heart, or shatters his pride, but it feels like it. Feels new, fresh, a suture come undone by force after forever.

They take the coach back to Rome, and sometime in the fours hours it takes to get there, cramped up together, Luca finds his hand in the dark, squeezing down painfully firm, the only way he knows how. It helps a little, his body heat soothing against the length of him, the quiet drone of music from his earphones between them the only sound in the eerie dead silence of the bus once everyone has made their sparing phone calls home, telling whoever it was that they were going to be late.

It’s near midnight when they get back.

“Come over to mine?” Luca asks, quiet in his ear. He nudges him with his shoulder. “Mama bought some bombe when she saw the score.”

He shouldn’t, but he does, and that’s how they end up at the corner of Luca’s dining room table, sugar and custard and chocolate sauce covering their fingers and the corners of their lips until Luca sees fit to lick it away. Nicolò laughs despite himself, telling Luca that the bomboloni back home are much better than this, that he’ll have to take him up north sometime.

“Promise?” Luca says, holding out a pinkie.

Nicolò locks their pinkies together, pulls Luca’s hand close and kisses the ridges of his knuckles. It’s a promise.

 

 

The next morning, Nicolò awakens to the sound of Luca’s voice.

He’s not far, sitting on the edge of the bed, smooth curve of his spine prominent as he talks on the phone. It’s something football related, Nicolò realises, sleep-saturated and slow, rolling over onto his side to stretch an arm out and touch him, fingers gliding over his skin. At first, it startles him, but then he settles, scooting his body back a little to make it easier for Nicolò to perfectly draw out N+L in imaginary ink, locked together in a heart.

He must know, because it’s only then that he reaches back, hand searching to play with his fingers. He keeps it up until he’s done, phone landing with a clatter on his nightstand.

“Guess where I’m going?” he asks, twisting around to finally look at Nicolò.

Nicolò, resting up on his elbow, pats the space beside him. “Right here?” he says, playing dumb or not quite ready to admit that Luca will be going all the way over to Cagliari, even he’s not quite sure.

Regardless, Luca comes back to him, hooking a leg over his thigh and pressing their foreheads together, bed hair a fluffy mess. For a while, he just kisses him off and on, tender and oddly sentimental, like he’s trying so desperately to cradle the memory in his mind, afraid that it might not happen again. Which is strange, because in all the talking he’s done to himself, preparing for Luca to be shipped out on loan somewhere, giving this up never crossed his mind.

“You’ll be here when I get back, won’t you?” Luca asks then, so deadly serious that it’s almost funny.

“Where would I go?” Nicolò replies, to which Luca pulls a face. “Oh, _come on_.”

“No one sticks around here very long,” he says, bringing up his pinkie close by their faces. “Just promise me you won’t fuck off to Juventus while I’m gone.”

Despite the quiet implication that it’s not just going to be just six months, Nicolò pinkie promises once more, says, “You’ll have to learn how to cook while you’re away,” smiling despite a looming sadness. Luca doesn’t share in his amusement, shaking his head and rolling on top of him. “I’m expecting a mean seafood fregola when you get back,” he continues, Luca beginning to press kisses to the underside of his jaw to shut him up.

Luca pushes himself up a little, thighs either side of Nicolò’s waist, hair falling to tickle his eyes.

“Fuck you,” he says. Then softer, “Fuck me.”

So Nicolò does.

He fucks Luca slow, on his back, ankles crossed at the damp dip of his back. It’s nice, tender, if only for Luca’s sake, the way he really likes it when he’s not biting Nicolò’s lip to bleed. He touches the scar on his knee, the one that scares him sometimes, stops him from being who he was before it, but he’s trying, working through it, and there are no ghosts of it in Sardinia, Nicolò assures him, kissing over the rise in his skin, no need for a latch of pinkies this time around.

It doesn’t last very long, and then Luca has to go.

“I’ll take you home,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

>   * [luca was v hyped](https://i2.wp.com/www.asromacalcio.com/wp-content/uploads/instagram-luca-pellegrini-welcomes-zaniolo-congratulations-brother-laroma24-it-%E2%80%8B%E2%80%8Ball-news-news-insights-live-on-as-roma.jpg?resize=350%2C623&ssl=1) about nicolò joining roma and [continues](https://www.pagineromaniste.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/49210972_395639444312535_3821040370968428544_n-191x340.jpg) [to be so](http://wp.laroma24.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/instagram-luca-pellegrini-169x300.jpeg).
>   * both nicolò and luca [made their serie a debuts](http://www.forzaroma.info/news-as-roma/roma-frosinone-per-zaniolo-arriva-anche-lesordio-in-serie-a/) during the 4-0 win against frosinone 
>   * luca is haunted by the ghost of mário rui's roma career. he [ruptured his acl](https://www.asroma.com/en/news/2017/7/medical-update-luca-pellegrini) of his left knee in the summer of 2017, then [fractured his patella](https://www.asroma.com/en/news/2017/12/medical-update-luca-pellegrini) on his comeback in december. he [sprained his ankle](https://gianlucadimarzio.com/en/roma-luca-pellegrini-sprains-left-ankle) in october 2018, too. 
>   * nicolò wants to stay at roma [forever](https://www.calciomercato.com/en/news/zaniolo-plays-down-juventus-i-want-to-stay-at-roma-forever-61373). sure, jan. 
>   * if nicolò's [#10yearschallenge ](http://www.laroma24.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/BIG-Zaniolo-e-Luca-Pellegrini-10-anni-fa-Instagram.jpg)is anything to go by, they've played against each other for a long time. [also](https://www.instagram.com/p/BS8u8k4A_pS/). 
>   * roma went full roma and [lost 7-1(!!!) to fiorentina](https://it.eurosport.com/calcio/le-pagelle-di-roma-fiorentina-7-1-chiesa-storico-giallorossi-a-picco_sto7122503/story.shtml) in the coppa. i'm still embarrassed. 
>   * nicolò [cried for a week](https://www.asroma.com/en/news/2019/2/the-first-interview-as-roma-x-nicolo-zaniolo) after fiorentina let him go 
>   * luca [signed for cagliari on loan](https://www.asroma.com/en/news/2019/1/luca-pellegrini-joins-cagliari-on-loan) until the end of the season on the last day of the winter window. rumour is they want him for another year. 
> 



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